


Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

by RunekeepersHymnal



Series: Roll that Dodecahedron! [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Confessions, Crack Treated Seriously, Drowning, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nightmares, Other, Reunions, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, Violence to knock someone out of polymorph, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 14:27:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19086919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunekeepersHymnal/pseuds/RunekeepersHymnal
Summary: Caleb goes down in a battle and cannot be brought back right away. He has a conversation with an old friend, because neither of them were careful what they wished for. For Widomauk Week, day one, Reunions/Confessions





	1. Go Toward the Light

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for episode 26, spoilers for episode 65 in first chapter, spoilers for later episodes (up to 72, will probably continue into later episodes with later chapters, but this is firmly an AU). Temporary character death, the astral plane, thirst, exhaustion, suicidal ideation, this whole fic is honestly a bit ridiculous, do we still use the word crack? This probably counts as crack. Molly uses he/him pronouns in this.

It was hardly the first time Caleb had gone unconscious in a fight, but as the Lost one tightened its grip on him and Caleb’s vision went black, he could sympathize, honestly, with that despair.  How close he had been to becoming so sad, and so lost, that any he would have taken anyone who came too near down with him, just so that he would not be alone.

 

He woke again in the Barbed Plains, but he didn’t think he was _awake_ awake.  Just… some form of consciously unconscious.  An occupational hazard. The plains around him were dull, absent of all color, except…

 

What looked like miles, _leagues_ ahead of him, there was a withered tree, and there was color there.  He would be hard-pressed to say what color, a flash of teal, maroon, violet, crimson, colors he had no names for in any of the tongues he knew, but whatever they were, Caleb dragged himself to his feet and staggered towards it.  

 

Every step jarred and wrenched his whole body with wrongness, wrongness in his movement, in his existence here, in the total soundlessness of the place, but Caleb Widogast was nothing if not obsessive, and he had no say in this moment about where his mind and soul and eyes fixed his will.

 

It never seemed to get any closer, but at one point, the wind picked up, and he was there, collapsing before the withered tree, panting in exhaustion.  

 

“Took you long enough,” a voice said fondly from above.  Caleb managed to raise his eyes to see Mollymauk Tealeaf lounging on a brittle limb, wrapped in a snow white robe lined with the richest, most vivid version of every color he’d ever worn, and he had worn _plenty._ He had grapes dangling from his hand which he chased with his mouth, juice staining his lips darker than before, and a circlet of flowers that were alive and fragile and soft at one moment, a crown of the same tooled from precious metal the next, fire and starlight and music the next after that.  

 

Caleb thought, before he collapsed again to the ground, that Yasha had said that those flowers were called Forget-Me-Nots.

 

“I did not,” he murmured against the dust as everything went dark again. “I swea… I did not.”

  


When Caleb came to that consciousness-that-wasn’t again, he was warm.  His hair was being gently stroked back from his forehead, and water was being dripped slowly into his mouth. He focused on the source of the water, a glass pitcher with a very narrow spout that just hovered in midair, tilting itself back upright so that no more flowed out when he looked at it. Next, Caleb tried to focus on the hand that was touching him, perhaps up to the face of the owner of said hand.

 

“Hi there, Mister Caleb,” a voice laughed, and Caleb tried to chase it with his eyes, which was ridiculous, he couldn’t _see_ a voice, that was absurd, but he managed to follow it up nonetheless.  “Remember me?”

 

Caleb blinked twice, first slow, then a bit quicker.  

 

“How could I forget?” he asked. “...is it really you, Mollymauk?”

 

Molly grinned, bright and toothy and toothsome.  

 

“That it is,” Molly replied. Caleb tried to clear the bleariness from his mind, but to no avail.

 

“Am I dead?” Caleb asked him.

 

“For the moment,” Molly confirmed.

 

“Possibly for more than a moment,” Caleb replied, realizing that his head was in Molly’s lap.  “I am fairly certain that Jester is out of diamonds.”

 

Molly gave him a wry smile.

 

“The big fella cast that genial riposte thing on you,” he assured Caleb.  

 

Caleb shut his eyes momentarily, almost a wince. Molly resumed petting his hair, and Caleb realized that his head was in Molly’s lap.

 

“There was a… I don’t know what they’re called, but I think I was hugged to death by something very lonely,” Caleb murmured.

 

“You’re gonna get brought back,” Molly assured him, “and I’m pretty sure when you get back, it’ll have been put out of its misery.”

 

Caleb said nothing, but opened his eyes.

 

“ _Please_ tell me you’re not disappointed,” Molly sighed. Caleb glared up at him.

 

“You haven’t been here,” Caleb pointed out.  “You don’t know what it’s been like. Without you... It has not been the same.”

 

Molly took Caleb’s face in his hands, leaning down, and planted an upside-down kiss on his forehead.

 

“I’ve absolutely been here,” Molly replied, much more gently than Caleb had expected. “Every step of the way. And I’m so fucking proud of all of you.”

 

It was so fiercely sincere that Caleb’s throat tightened.  

 

“Is it _really_ you?” Caleb blurted, carefully sitting up, ruining the gravity of the moment by hitting his head on the floating pitcher.

 

“Shit, shit, sorry, _yes,_ it’s really me!” Molly apologized, standing and hopping to catch the pitcher before it floated out of reach.  “Who else would it be?”

 

“I have no idea,” Caleb said. “Jester’s Traveller? Or maybe I’m back in the asylum.  Maybe I never left it.”

 

Molly sat back down with a huff.

 

“That’s just rude,” he sulked. Caleb looked around, and they were in the romance novel version of a circus wagon, all lined with cushions and silks and fliers from great performances in exotic locales. A fine thread was wound around the corners of the ceiling, and different phases of the moons dangled from it.  Caleb got up, taking in his surroundings on shaky legs. He heard a soft whirring noise, and it drew his gaze back to Molly, who had out his cards and was shuffling them.

 

“First you’re disappointed that you’re not dead, and then you have the audacity to refuse to believe that I’m me. I believe that I’ve made it very clear to you in the time that we’ve known one another that being me is extremely important to me, and now here you are, implying that I’m not doing a convincing job of it, as though _I_ wouldn’t be the authority on the topic.”

 

Molly’s frown was so very put out, so indignant, that Caleb’s heart softened.

 

“Promise me that it is you,” Caleb demanded one last time.  Molly set the cards in front of him, face down in a neat stack, and looked up at Caleb, hope creeping back over his face.

 

“Cross my heart,” Molly said, doing just that with his right hand, “and hope to… Well.  It’s a little late for that. Come sit, please? We’ve got time to talk, at least for a while.”

 

Caleb obediently settled on the cushions opposite the little space Molly had cleared amongst the clutter of trunks, fabrics, curios, and comforts.  Molly took up his cards again and started shuffling.

 

“I would not want us to run out of time,” Caleb murmured hoarsely.  Molly looked up at that, but rather than the cards fumbling, they froze in mid-waterfall between his hands. Despite apparently having stopped time, or having learned some telekinesis in his afterlife, Molly’s face was so open and raw.

 

“You have no idea,” he said at last, smiling soft and sweet. “We had so much left to do, you and me.  You were going to teach me to waltz, I was going to teach you how to tell fortunes so you’d never have to steal for coin again.  There were going to be drinking contests and music, quiet nights under the stars, and you were going to fall in love with me,” Molly said.

 

Caleb smiled back at that.

 

“I was, was I?” he asked. Molly nodded, resuming his shuffle.

 

“Absolutely,” he assured, without his usual bravado.  Caleb sat back, realizing that he had neither his coat nor his books, and so simply cast dancing lights to have something to do with his own hands while Molly busied his with his cards.

 

“And was this to be requited, or was I to be the tragic lovelorn figure in this tale?” Caleb asked, sending one to circle the moons hanging around the room, orbiting the two of them. Molly shook his head with a chuckle.

 

“It was going to be both of us, equally stupid, a classic comedy of misunderstandings and unnecessary heartache, a cast of marvelous friends who would engage in increasingly absurd antics to make us see what was obvious to all of them,” Molly answered, his cheeks coloring slightly. “That you and me were meant to be.”

 

Molly held the deck out to Caleb.

 

“But then I up and died and fucked it all up,” Molly said. “I’m really quite sorry about that. Shuffle, please.”

 

Caleb took the deck, and sent the three lights that hovered around him to dance around Molly instead.  

 

“And yet, here we are,” Caleb said, shuffling the deck with simple partial slides from one hand to the other, letting cards fall over and under one another.  “With some time, _ja?_ ”

 

“Ja indeed,” Molly said, running his fingertips over the globes of light that drifted and returned, playing with him and giving chase.  “It’s a bit more of a peculiar situation, but it wouldn’t be the first romance between a mortal and a god.”

 

Caleb very much _did_ fumble the cards.

 

“Come again?” he asked.  Molly gave him a cheeky grin, batting one of the lights into the air and then catching it on the tip of his nose, balancing it there.

 

“Well, you weren’t in the room for this bit, I don’t think,” Molly said, bouncing the other two lights up and catching them on the tips of his horns before shaking the three of them free and starting to juggle them. “But at the Pillowtrove, after my magnificent massage and conversation with the two lovely professionals, I _may_ have come back into the room with the others and announced ‘I am your god, long may I reign.”

 

Caleb laughed, gathering the cards back up and starting his shuffle again.

 

“Beauregard described it at great length, with much ire,” Caleb said, “and then Jester painted the same picture in a much more flattering light.  I am a bit sad that I did not get to see it.”

 

Molly flipped one of the lights behind his back, over his shoulder to rejoin in the whirl.  Between them and the light that still orbited well above, the shadows between them were, appropriately, Caleb supposed, otherworldly looking.

 

“Well, apparently one needs to be a bit careful when one says such things,” Molly sighed, “because someone might hear you and decide to take you up on your offer.”  

 

Caleb, almost mindlessly, started laying out cards.  Five in a crescent, horns pointing left, another five, horns pointing right.  One to the west, one to the south, one to the east, one to the north, and then one in the center, laying over the edges of the center of each crescent’s curve.  

 

“So a boast after a night of debauchery, and after your untimely death, you find yourself behind the divine gate?”  Caleb asked. Molly shrugged.

 

“Almost.  I am very much on the mortal side of the gate, funnily enough.  Apparently the Betrayer gods are up to all sorts of shenanigans to try to corrupt the world despite the gate, and so the Prime Deities have decided to up their game by… I think the appropriate term is deputizing?”

 

Caleb frowned, tilting his head as he studied the cards he’d laid out.  It was the symbol of the Archeart, he knew that much, but what each position signified, he had no idea.  

 

“So you are a deputy god.  A demi-god?” Caleb asked. Molly shrugged.

 

“I guess?” he said, settling the lights in his hands again, opting for contact juggling as he looked at the cards Caleb had dealt, the spheres seeming to ripple along the back of Molly’s snake tattoo.  “I don’t think depi-god is a word, so I suppose that works. What on earth is this spread you have going on here?”

 

Caleb winked the lights out.

 

“Focus, please, on the fact that you were deputized into divinity,” he scolded. “By whom?  The Moonweaver?”

 

Molly didn’t look up from the cards.

 

“Got it in one,” he said, pointing at Caleb.  “I’m actually in the same league as Jester’s Traveller now, and Caduceus doesn’t know it, but his big sister got roped in by the Wildmother for a similar gig.  There’s an awful lot to do, and so spreading the workload out seems to be the divine plan.”

 

Caleb shook his head.

 

“Only you, Mollymauk,” he sighed fondly, “only you.”

 

Molly slapped his hand to his chest, looking up at last.  

 

“I do _not_ care for your tone, Caleb Widogast! Implying I stumbled into this position rather than having earned it through my profound faith and devotion.”

 

Caleb rolled his eyes.

 

“Come here and tell me what this means, then,” Caleb said.  “I have no idea why my hands have done this, but they have, and since I am in the ‘temple’ of a fortune telling depi-god, I might as well see what wisdom you might impart to me.”

 

Molly moved to sit next to Caleb, snapping playfully at the finger quotes that he made around the word temple.  

 

“Heresy while seeing sense.  I don’t know whether to smite you or bless you,” Molly said.  “Shove over. I’m winging this a bit, since you’ve gone and invented an entire new tarot spread.  You started here, yes?”

 

Caleb nodded at the top of the left hand crescent.  Molly stared at it for a bit, then shook his head.

 

“Use your fancy memory to remember that image; I’m going to have to speak to some people about how to interpret it,” Molly said. “Let me know when you’ve got it.”

 

Caleb nodded after a moment, and Molly took up his cards.

 

“Sorry to disappoint, darling, but this is not the time for bullshit,” Molly said, “and I don’t know what exactly the Archeart spread could mean.  So I’ll give you a reading that I know. Cut the deck, please.”

 

Caleb took the cards, cutting the deck three times, then handing it back.  Molly laid out three cards, face down.

 

“Past, present, future?” Caleb asked, and Molly shook his head.  

 

“Not this time,” he said, and pointed at each card, left, right, then center.  “Mortality, divinity, and whatever the word is for going from one to the other.”

 

Caleb tilted his head at Molly.

 

“I do not recall having volunteered to be deputized by any gods, Mister Mollymauk.”  

 

Molly flipped the first card on the left. The Magician. The damned card even _looked_ like Caleb now, red hair, ragged coat, but with eyes of blue flame.

 

“Well that’s just a bit cliche, but to be expected.  Your mortality has been defined by your magic, what you’ve done with it.”

 

Caleb swallowed.

 

“And what it has cost me,” he added.  Molly slipped his arm over Caleb’s shoulders, squeezing him closer and kissing the side of his head.

 

“I know,” Molly murmured into his hair. “I didn’t then, but I do now.  I’m sorry, darling. A lot of us are.”

 

Caleb let himself take that comfort, in this moment, leaning in to Molly.  After all, what else was he to do with this time.

 

“And the next?” he asked, for want of anything else meaningful to say.  Molly flipped the far right card with his left hand, keeping Caleb held tight.  

 

“The Light,” Molly smiled, running his fingers over the illustration, a bright, eight pointed star hanging above a clearing of trees. Caleb noted that the cardinal points of the star were barbed like arrows, while the ordinals were curved, like the points of two crescents placed back to back.  “Which specifically refers to a mutual friend of ours, whose symbol you claimed off those Merrow.”

 

Caleb shut his eyes tightly.  

 

“No bullshit?” he asked.

 

“None, not now,” Molly assured him. “Now… this would be the difficult bit, the bridge between here and there.”

 

Molly didn’t ask if Caleb was ready, he just flipped the card, taking his arm from Caleb’s shoulders and waiting for him to open his eyes.  

 

There, between the Magician and the Light, was the Fool, dressed in harlequin and striped trousers, juggling two swords of carnival glass, dressed in the most magnificent coat that ever hung from mortal arms.  

 

Caleb looked over at Molly, who was _exceptionally_ smug.  

 

“I have never seen someone so pleased to be called a fool by his own deck of cards,” Caleb said, and Molly cackled, bright and happy and without a trace of the melancholy that had shadowed this whole strange visit.

 

“I know what I am,” Molly crowed in delight, “and I have never been more glad to be it, because it means that I, Caleb Widogast, am your divinely decreed instructor into the ways of semi-demi-depi-divinity!”

 

Caleb rubbed his brow.

 

“And who said that I wanted such a tutelage?”  

 

“You did, of course,” Molly shrugged.  “Though the exact phrasing was ‘I want to bend reality to my will.’ Careful what you wish for and that.”

 

“So… what?” Caleb asked, growing more confused by the moment.  “I’m going to be to you what Jester is to the Traveller?”

 

Molly’s tail curled and waved in his delight.

 

“I don’t know,” he said, “there were an awful lot of paladins in those smutty books you and Jester used to read.”

 

“Oh, _ja_ , I’ll just go get my Zweihänder and get right to work,” Caleb rolled his eyes.  “You promised me no bullshit--”

 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Molly cackled, not seeming so in the slightest.  “It’s just… I mean, it’s just such a _terrible_ pick up line, ‘Hey baby, wanna  be my paladin?’ I couldn’t help myself.”

 

Caleb thought through several responses to that and instead hit Molly with a pillow.

 

“Blasphemy!” Molly cried, grabbing another cushion to defend himself.

 

“I have cast spiritual weapon, didn’t you notice?” Caleb responded, deadpan even as he took another whack at Molly.  

 

Who knew how long he’d be dead, how long they would have to talk?  Molly had brought up some grave topics, between competitions between the Gods themselves, and the mortal wars in which Caleb was already thoroughly entangled.  

 

“Caleb, this is ridiculous!” Molly laughed, luminous in his merriment, laughing that much harder as the pillow caught the tip of his horn and exploded into a blizzard of feathers all around them.

 

“I am--” Caleb paused to spit away some down that fluttered into his mouth.  “I am being as reverently devoted to my new depi-god as I can, Mollymauk. I have it on good authority that he is a fool.”

 

Molly’s cackles subsided into contented giggles, and he reached up to touch Caleb’s face.

 

“Oh he is,” Molly smiled up at him.  “An utter fool, to be sure.”

 


	2. Agony/Ecstasy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So hey, continuing this! I have no idea how regularly or when this one will update. I have accepted that schedules are probably just never gonna fly in the context of my silly life. 
> 
> Caleb is resurrected, but comes back a little different. The rest of the Mighty Nein have concerns.
> 
> This is thoroughly an AU post-episode 64 (good lord this campaign is flying by), and contains out-of-sequence from canon events through at least episode 76. While I will try to keep informing for the latest episode in the story for which there are anything like spoilers, since it is an AU, I cannot promise that I will remember exactly what occurred when in canon. To be 100% sure you won’t encounter any spoilers, please don’t read this one unless you’re caught up. Please see end notes for more info on planned pairings. Rating likely to go up.

The others didn’t believe Caleb, exactly, when they brought him back a few days later.  There was sympathy, there were sad, strained smiles. For the first couple days that he was back, Caleb was far too weak to argue with them about it much, still seemingly delirious. It took a full day for him to remain awake for more than an hour, two more for him to remember how to speak anything but Zemnian. 

  


Caduceus was the first to buy in.  He was helping get some food into Caleb, whose hands were still shaking terribly, unsteady and weak.  Caleb was frustrated to no end, both at his fragility and his friends’ skepticism.

  


“Now now, Mister Caleb,” Caduceus muttered as he raised a spoon full of broth to Caleb’s mutinous mouth. “Just because the broth won’t curdle is no call to scowl at me so.”

  


Caleb’s thunderous expression softened into something of a pout instead.

  


“Open please,” Caduceus prompted, and Caleb let his mouth drop open to accept the bite. “Thank you, that’s wonderful.”

  


Caleb sighed sharply through his nose as he swallowed the spoonful of soup Caduceus had tipped into his mouth, but held up a shaking hand as Caduceus offered more.

  


“Your eldest sister’s name is Camelia Galanthea,” he said, voice rasping. “I know you know that she's no longer alive. But she is very much still in our world, and I swear to you I am not lying.  She is very tall, and she is not the sister who crafted your armor, that was Corona. Camelia’s nickname is Mimi, and when you were cross with each other when you were little, Camelia would call you Dudu and you would call her Caca.”

  


Caduceus froze in mid-stir of the soup.

  


“I swear to you, Caduceus, your sister is the right hand of the Wildmother in between this world and the next. Molly is aiding the Moonweaver. The Traveller is aiding… I’m not exactly sure, maybe the Archeart, maybe he is as Jester says, but I am  _ not _ delusional, and I’m not lying.”

  


Having said his piece, Caleb collapsed back into the bed, and dozed off very quickly.

  


Caduceus sat in silence for a moment, holding soup, just watching his sleeping friend and processing that information.

  


“Camelia’s left-handed,” Caduceus said at last, getting up to go sit by his tree and commune with the Wildmother.

  


Jester was next.

  


"Molly said his cloak is green," Caleb said with fevered insistence as she tried to get him to hold still long enough to brush his hair. "Molly said he laughs like bells and cheats at cards."

  


That time she had nodded and smiled and ignored him. She was fairly sure that she'd mentioned all those things before.

  


She was trying to convince him to let her help him change his clothes when he convinced her.  

  


"Caleb, come  _ on,  _ you're not going to get any better if you keep wearing the dirty clothes you're sleeping in!" she cajoled. "You’re probably gonna get bed sores or something!  Or  _ fleas, _ and then Frumpkin’s gonna get fleas and then Nugget and then Sprinkle and then  _ me,  _ Caleb, do you want me to get fleas?!”

  


She managed to wrestle his shirt over his head, but despite his obscured vision he managed to flail his index finger in her direction.  She was not particularly concerned, until it started to glow green.

  


“Caleb!” she scolded, “Whatever you’re doing mister,  _ don’t you do it! _ ”

  


She didn’t really know what she expected, but it was not for him to draw a pink heart in the air, and then reach through it to boop her on the nose, green sparkles trailing after it.

  


Jester froze.  She’d been six, maybe seven, but she remembered this.  Drawing with pastels in a giant blank book her mother had gotten her for her art, the green flying from her hand to write secrets in the book, just for her. 

  


“Green cloak.  Laughs like bells,” Caleb said, muffled by his shirt, the color and sparkles fading from his finger.

  


“Okay,” Jester squeaked.  “Okay okay okay… Um… Okay?”

  


She managed to yank the shirt free of Caleb’s head and arms and revealed his triumphant face.

  


“I told you!” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed, whipping off his trousers and throwing them at her as well.

  


At least she managed to get him clean, she thought, and in her head, she heard laughter like the chiming of bells.

  


***

  


“No, but Fjord,  _ really! _ ” Jester insisted. “He’s telling the truth!  He knows stuff that I never told anyone because I didn’t even  _ remember  _ it ‘til now!”

  


Fjord sighed, rubbing his forehead.

  


“Even if he is, Jester, what in the fuck are we supposed to do about any of it?  Besides, Caleb’s all getting more powerful and shit, maybe he read your mind or somethin’.”

  


Caduceus joined them at the table, holding a teacup, with a distant, rattled look they rarely saw on him.

  


“No, uh… Caleb’s absolutely right.  The Wildmother said that he seems like a nice boy, but that he needs to watch it with the fire. She said that Camelia’s proud of me and is an excellent assistant. And she said that there’s a lot of plans for all of us in some…”

  


Caduceus took a drink of his tea.

  


“...in some very high places indeed.”

  


Jester managed to form a facial expression that was simultaneously triumphant and slightly nauseated all at once.  Fjord grew a significantly paler green.

  


“Well…” he said, looking from cleric to cleric.  “Fuck.”

  


***

  


Beau and Nott were mostly concerned, but curious about this development.

  


“This is kinda weird, right?” Beau asked as they sat on the balcony, drinking.  

  


“Absolutely,” Nott agreed. “Is it weird that I feel a bit left out?  I mean, everyone else has some sort of god or deity or… thing. I mean, even you have what’s her face, Lagoon.”

  


“Ioun, and… I mean, that’s more like a work relationship?” Beau shrugged.  There was a faint flicker of heat lightning off in the distance. Both of them got quiet.

  


“What are we gonna tell Yasha?” Nott murmured, looking off towards the horizon.  Beau sighed and nodded.

  


“The fuck are we gonna tell Yasha?” she agreed. 

  


***

  


It turned out that neither Beau nor Nott would have to tell Yasha anything.  Caleb, apparently had it handled.

  


He eventually regained his strength, but continued to act rather peculiarly, even for him. He had fits of frenzied activity and research, followed by bouts of melancholy, where he barely got out of bed, except for occasionally reading.  None of this was particularly atypical of Caleb, but the intensity of it all had been turned up quite a bit. He had taken to bursting out of his room into the library/lab, startling Nott and Yeza mid-experiment, snatching more books than he could usually carry, and retreating back into his room.  He’d polymorph himself into a raven and hang out in the top branches of Caduceus’ tree, cawing at the moon until the neighbors complained. He’d spend  _ hours _ in the spa, coming out pink faced, well scrubbed, and just as skittish as always.  

  


Eventually, these complaints got back to Essek Thelyss, who was profoundly not thrilled, and who made that particularly clear when he showed up at the Mighty Nein’s door, scowling.  

  


“Heyyyyyy, Shadowha-okay,” Beau said when she opened the door, not bothering to fight when Essek brushed past her and accomplished the gliding equivalent of storming up the stairs to the turret and the base of Caduceus’ tree. 

  


“CALEB WIDOGAST!” he bellowed up at the crown of the tree, throwing the hood of his cloak over his head in irritation at the jarred sunlight all around him.

  


“Oh,” Caduceus said, looking up from pruning a rosemary bonsai.  “Hey there, Mister Thelyss. Can I get you some tea?”

  


The Shadowhand ignored Caduceus, holding an elegant arm out into the air.

  


“CALEB WIDOGAST, I  _ SUGGEST _ YOU GET OUT OF THAT PLANT IMMEDIATELY!” he ordered.  

  


A sheepish looking raven flew down and landed on Essek’s arm.  

  


“Oh, hey Mister Caleb.  Would you like some—” 

  


Caduceus stopped talking as Essek backhanded the bird, causing an equally sheepish wizard to land on the ground.

  


“Ouch,” Caleb grumbled, only for Essek to grab him by the back of his shirt and drag him to his feet.  

  


“Study.  Now,” Essek replied archly.

  


The rest of the Nein waited outside the library to try to keep Essek from murdering Caleb if it sounded like he was, and if they could.  None of them were entirely sure how they would stage this rescue (the word ‘Fluffernutter' had been thrown around by Jester, Nott and, terrifyingly, Yeza), but eventually the door opened and Essek, much more subdued than he had appeared when he entered, emerged.  A rather smug looking Caleb stood in the doorway.

  


“I… have a great deal of research to do,” Essek said, gliding a little unsteadily.  “I apologize, to all of you, for my intrusion and earlier rudeness.”

  


Caduceus stepped forward.

  


“There seems to be a lot going on lately,” he murmured quietly, handing Essek a small bag. “You can steep this in hot water, or infuse it in liquor, whichever you think would better work for your current state of mind.”

  


Essek took it, disappearing it into his cloak, and left. 

  


“Stop looking smug, Caleb!” Beau groused. "It just doesn’t fuckin’ look right.”

  


Caleb snapped Frumpkin into existence around his shoulders, and they both looked smug together.

  


***

  


"Yasha's back," Nott observed as she, Beau, Jester, Yeza, and Fjord returned to the Haus having picked up some breakfast and some books that Essek had ordered Professor Waccoh to release to Caleb. She had cursed up a storm, passed on the books, thrown in two extra, and demanded that they tell Caleb to drag his bony 'humie' ass to her library because she felt like an argument with someone who could keep up.

  


"So," Beau said as she and Yasha cleaned up after breakfast, "Caleb fill you in?" 

  


Yasha nodded.

  


"It's… it's very interesting."

  


"Yeah?" 

  


Yasha traced the flower pattern on the dish she was drying.

  


"It's one thing to think, to hope that there's something after this, that when you lose someone they're not gone forever. Knowing it, because your friend died and came back with proof, and a plan, is a very strange feeling."

  


Beau dunked the next dish in their washing basin.

  


“It’s okay if you wanna ask Caleb about Zuala,” she said. “He may not  _ say  _ it, but Caleb kind of thinks you’re totally amazing, and if you asked him to ask about her? He’d do it. Not out of obligation, but like… because you deserve it?”

  


Yasha had stopped moving her drying cloth, but Beau powered through anyway.

  


“Caleb has been through some shit; I know it’s kinda obvious, but he would be the absolute first person to do anything to help you check on someone you love who’s… who isn’t here anymore. And he’s right, or he would be, if he knew you wanted to know about her. You deserve it.”

  


Yasha set the dish down.

  


“...Beau, I—” Yasha cut herself off, then, after a moment, just said, “Thank you.”

  


“And if for some weird reason he’s a dick about it, let me know and I’ll kick his ass for you,” Beau shrugged.

  


“I’m not sure that he can, though,” Yasha said, a few dishes later.  “Ask, I mean. He was only able to speak to Molly because he was dead for a while.  And I don’t want anyone else to die.”

  


Beau nodded.  

  


“I mean, in our line of work, it’s… you know, it’s kinda likely, but Deuces and Jester have gotten really good at bringing people back--”

  


“Beau,” Yasha interrupted.

  


Beau shut up.

  


“Yeah,” Beau said finally.  “I don’t want anyone else to die either.  Even just for a couple days. It fucking sucks every time, and every time it happens, I’m scared as fuck that they’re not gonna come back.  Which is fuckin’  _ stupid, _ because like, if they don’t come back for Jester or Caduceus’ spells that means that they don’t want to, which means that they’re probably someplace amazing, like heaven, like you’d be back with Zuala or Caleb would be back with his parents, and that’s so shitty of me, to be that selfish, to be scared of someone getting to be that happy, but--”

  


Beau shut up again as she found herself pulled to Yasha in a swift, strong hug, the dish towel in Yasha’s hand flapping damply against Beau’s ass.

  


Yasha didn’t say anything, but Beau found herself tearing up anyway.

  


“I don’t have anyone on the other side waiting for me,” Beau said shakily into Yasha’s chest.  “And I know that a lot of you do, like Fjord could meet his real parents, maybe, and… and I’m just scared that if you guys go you won’t want to come back and I really don’t want to be alone again, Yasha.”

  


Yasha didn’t say anything, but hugged Beau a little tighter.

  


“I’m sorry I’m a selfish bitch,” Beau said, didn’t whimper, did  _ not _ fucking whimper--

  


Yasha pulled her head and shoulders back just enough to kiss the top of Beau’s head without letting her go in the slightest.

  


“We would come back,” Yasha said.  “ _ I  _ would come back. Zuala would understand. Caleb’s parents would understand.  There’s always time to die later, Beau. And if you went first and couldn’t come back, Molly is waiting there for you, and if he didn’t take excellent care of you while you waited for the rest of us-- and you wouldn’t have to wait long, we wouldn’t get very far without you-- then as soon as I got there I would hang him from a tentpole by his tail until he apologized to you and meant it.”

  


Beau couldn’t help herself, she laughed all while crying, and wrapped her arms around Yasha and squeezed back as tightly as she could.

  


“I know what it feels like,” Yasha said, like once she’d found her words she couldn’t hold them back. “When you all went into that fucking ball and vanished for six days, I… I didn’t ever realize that I wanted to be back with you after Molly, I thought I was better off on my own, and then when I thought I lost you again, just… in the middle of the ocean, I figured out I was wrong and I thought it was too late.  I could never do that to all of you. I couldn’t do it to myself. Not again. So you don’t have to be afraid of that, okay? I’ll keep coming back until we’ve all moved on. I’ll close the door behind us. I promise, Beau.”

  


Beau stood there for a while, just nodding, breathing in Yasha’s rainstorm scent, so startled by the thundering of feet running towards them that she didn’t have time to pull away before Jester squished against her back.

  


“I don’t know why we’re crying but it’ll be okay!” Jester cried, turning her head so that she didn’t gore either Beau or Yasha, tucking her face into Beau’s neck.  By the wavering of her voice and the dampness against her neck, Beau figured that Jester was crying too. Then she heard Yasha sniff above her, and… well… fuck.  

  


Beau didn’t feel so weak or selfish or stupid after that.  

  


***

  


Fjord didn’t really know what to think, and when he didn’t know what to think, he tended to fall into Caduceus’ field of gravity.  He drank tea, he helped with the plants, and he tried to push away the voice in his head demanding his return.

  


He watched Caleb with even more suspicion than he had at the beginning of their journey as a group, the fevered, frenzied research, the strange behavior, and the distressingly quick way he’d brought Jester, Yasha, and Beau around to his way of thinking.  He was sitting drinking tea with Caduceus when Caleb stepped onto the landing of the turret, took off his coat and folded it, setting it on the ground, then using it to cushion three books he carried with him. He took two more steps forward and turned into a raven in mid-stride, flying up into the tree.  He kept his discussions with the moon to quiet croaks and mutters, apparently out of deference to Essek, as he certainly wasn’t going to listen to any of Fjord’s concerns.

  


Not that Fjord had really tried to voice them.  At this point, it felt like it would be trying to talk Jester out of believing in the Traveller, except that he and Caleb didn’t really trust each other like that.  

  


“What’s on your mind?” Caduceus asked, out of the blue.  Usually he just waited for someone to talk, or reminded them he was there if one of the others ever needed to talk.  Fjord sighed, setting down his teacup and rubbing his eyes.

  


“That bad, huh?” he asked.  

  


“You’ve been picking at your tusks again,” Caduceus replied, refilling Fjord’s teacup.  “You’ve kinda got a tell.”

  


Fjord leaned his chair back on two legs and sighed, staring up at the tree.

  


“How do we know what came back is really Caleb?” he asked.  “Or  _ just _ Caleb?” 

  


Caduceus glanced up at the tree.

  


“I did check that,” Caduceus said.  “It’s the same spell I use to take a look at those little treasures we find.  I do that and a couple others on anyone we bring back. Cast it on myself, actually, after Nott… well, you know.  But the real question is, why do you think it’s  _ not _ Caleb?”

  


Fjord shook his head.

  


“Just… Caleb was real rational.  Real… I don’t wanna say mercenary, but… goal oriented.  This feels a lot different.”

  


Caduceus sipped his tea thoughtfully.

  


“Different from other times he’s died?” he asked.  

  


“Caleb’s never been dead-dead before,” Fjord answered.  “Only one who ever died before you was Molly.”

  


Caduceus just sipped his tea and looked at Fjord, who sighed sullenly.  

  


“So you’re sayin’ that I don’t  _ know _ if this is weird for Caleb, because I never seen him die and come back before,” Fjord said.

  


“I didn’t say anything,” Caduceus replied.  “Sounds like you are, though. And you left someone out.”

  


“Well, Caleb didn’t come back a goblin, so I’m not sure--”

  


“Not Nott,” Caduceus said, “you.  You drowned and came back, didn’t you?”

  


Fjord shifted uncomfortably in his seat, peering up at the outline of the raven in the tree.

  


“I don’t know for sure, but… yeah.  Yeah, I reckon so.”

  


Caduceus nodded.

  


“We all… we all handle being dead, no matter how briefly, differently.  Some keep on as they have been, some desperately try to put things back the way they were before, some try to reinvent themselves,” he said gently, Fjord ducking his head at the not-quite-overt but only barely unspoken, ‘like you did.’ “In some cases, such as Caleb’s, people have a bit of a revelation.”

  


Fjord shrugged.

  


“Just seems too… tidy.  Too neat. It’s fine if we die, because then we get to play sidekick to the gods and fight the betrayers and keep being heroes, and everyone lives happily ever after.”

  


“Except for the ‘lives’ part,” Caduceus chuckled.  “But no one’s going to live forever, Fjord. That’s not how this works.  What would you rather have happen, after?”

  


Fjord didn’t say anything, just sipped his tea.  The raven looked down from the treetop, locking its beady but still blue eyes with his and swooping down to snatch one of the scones Jester had bought off of his plate and carry it to gods knew where.  

  
  


He had nightmares that night, the truly bad kind. He was back in the cold, crushing depth with no sense of which way was up, every stream of bubbles he exhaled splitting into multiple directions until he had no air left to try to find his way to the surface. 

  


_ Return.  Punish. _

  


Fjord shook his head, hands over his mouth and nose, kicking his legs trying to move, and then, that goddamn eye opened.

  


**_Punish.  Punish. PUNISH._ **

  


This time, it wasn’t tentacles wrapped around his torso, it was just the sea, the pure sea staving in his chest with the pressure of being so far under water, so far from the air and the sun, the thousands and thousands of gallons of water pressing on his bones and the hollow stuff between them and crunching, eliminating all the empty space inside him that needed to be there, grinding bits of Fjord against himself because in the face of all of this he was so small, so small, so insignificant, and--

  


Fjord woke with a gag as Beau’s hand cracked across his face.  He pitched over onto his side, vomiting seawater, more than he thought his body could hold, feeling himself nearly turn inside out with it.  Jester was there too, rubbing his back gently, the healing warmth of her fingers fixing the salt-stinging tears through his lungs, his throat.

  


“Beau, go get Caduceus?” Jester asked, and Fjord curled in on himself as Beau’s bare feet sprinted from the room.  “Fjord, what’s happening?”

  


Fjord ground the heels of his hands against his eyes.

  


“I don’t know,” he said, Vandran’s voice slipping away.  “I’m… I think Uk’otoa has decided that he’s finished with me.”

  


Jester’s hand went still.

  


“Finished how?” Jester asked.

  


“Finished as in… as in he’s decided that I’m not worth the wait, so he’s going to end me and get one of his other lackeys to come collect the orb out of my remains to free him.”  

  


Jester started rubbing his back again.

  


“We won’t let that happen.  We can… I can ask the Traveller--”

  


Fjord turned over, grabbing her hand in both of his.

  


“There’s no happy ending for me, Jester!” he choked out.  “No Traveller, no Stormlord, no Ioun or Wildmother or even Molly!  Don’t you understand? I tied myself to something  _ evil, _ exactly what the rest of you are fighting against!  I’m a monster’s  _ pet, _ and now that I’ve been disobedient, I’m nothing!”

  


Jester’s lower lip quivered.

  


“Well that’s just stupid!” she shouted.  “You’re not nothing, and pets can run away, and find new people who care about them and love them and… and… that’s just what you need to do!”  

  


Fjord felt his own eyes tearing up, both for himself and for his first friend in this group, whose heart he just kept breaking again and again.

  


“I’ve tried, Jessie,” he said.  “I’ve been trying. I don’t think I can run far enough.  I don’t think there’s anything that can match him that could want something like me.”

  


The light that came from the hallway dimmed as Caduceus stepped in front of it, Beau at his elbow.

  


“Yeah, no,” Caduceus said, calm, but with the faint edge of anger he got whenever something truly offended his sensibilities.  “We’re not gonna go with that theory until we’ve run out of people to ask, and then asked a few more.”

  


Caduceus came forward and sat at the foot of the bed, followed shortly by Beau, who just sat on Fjord himself and punched his shoulder, then hugged him.  Nott joined in a moment later, sleepy but concerned. 

  


Yasha’s shadow passed near the doorway, and Caleb walked up to the door and looked in, but both drifted away after a moment.  Fjord figured that was probably for the best.  

  


Someone had to keep an eye on the rest of them, for now.

  


***

  


Caleb set his thread at their friends’ door, and then he and Yasha went up to Caduceus’ tower to keep a watch and think.

  


“This is a bit of a mess,” Yasha said after ten or so minutes of silence.  Caleb sighed, running fingers through his hair over and over until Yasha touched his elbow to still him.

  


“ _ Ja. _   If I had thought about it more, I would have realized that this news would not be the same for everyone.  I should have been more considerate of Fjord’s… situation.” 

  


Yasha shrugged.

  


“It’s hard to remember that your friend who’s a good person is also beholden to a probably-evil sea monster,” she said.  Caleb scoffed.

  


“I nearly bled myself out with him over an altar to some damned thing to prove a point.  We became fucking blood brothers because of that nonsense.”

  


Yasha turned and made a face at him.

  


“Yeah, Jester and I were wondering what the fuck that was about!”

  


Caleb hunched his shoulders, embarrassed.

  


“Ach.  I don’t know.  I think perhaps I thought I was bringing his attention to the gravity of his decisions, to what he was asking of all of us to do this with him, but… perhaps we were both just being drama queens,” he muttered.  “Still. Not the sort of thing that I should forget about.”

  


Yasha nodded.

  


“So.  What do we do about it?” she asked.  “You solve puzzles and put magic together.  I cut things in half with my sword. Between us we can fix this.”

  


Caleb considered this.  

  


“Well.  Fortunately we cannot hit Uk’otoa with spells or your sword because he is still bound.  So we must unbind Fjord, I suppose.”

  


They sat in awkward silence.

  


“...maybe we could try to find him another god?” Yasha finally asked.

  


Caleb considered this.

  


“Probably could not hurt?” he shrugged helplessly.  “But the only gods we really have here are the ones we brought with us, and the Luxon.”

  


***

  


The following morning, Fjord was subjected to a pitch meeting. 

  


He hated every moment of it.

“But  _ Fjord, _ the Traveller is the coolest, and with Molly’s sword, you can already do that thing with the jumping around, and Doorways are totally his thing!  And his cloak is green, and  _ you’re _ green.”

  


“Jester,” Fjord sighed.  “I’m sorry. I don’t care for pranks, not that I would ever stop you, and I just… I don’t… I’ve had enough of chaos.”

  


***

  


“Well… the Stormlord… there are storms on the sea?”

  


Fjord’s sole comfort was that Yasha looked about as uncomfortable as he felt.

  


“...yes, they nearly killed me.  A lot.”

  


“Right.”

  


***

  


“I gotta be straight with you, man, I don’t think you’re cut out for Ioun.  There’s a lot of reading. Like, a  _ lot _ of reading.  And like almost no pictures, except for like margin selfies of monks begging for someone to kill them so they don't have to copy any more bullshit. So, so, soooo much--”

  


“Okay, I get it, thanks, Beau.”

  


"And when you're not reading, you're training.  Like maybe four hours of sleep until you can do two hundred pull ups and inverted crunches in two minutes."

  


"That sounds just horrible."

  


"...yeah."

  
  


***

  


"Is alcohol a god?"

  


"No, Nott, it isn't."

  


"Then I got nothing."

  


***

  


"I... er. I've been sent to talk to you about what I believe. Before Molly died, I would have said the Archeart intrigues me.  After, I would have said that if there are gods, I do not think they care about us."

  


"And now?"

  


"I believe in Molly. I believe whatever Molly tells me is so."

  


"Well. If Molly has any ideas, I'd be very interested."

  


"I'll let you know."

  


"...can you do that without dying again?"

  


"I suppose we will see."

  


***

  


"Hey."

  


"Hi."

  


"Let's take a walk. I'll make you some tea."

  


"No sales pitch?"

  


"Nah.  C'mon."

  


Up in the turret, Caduceus laid out a blanket and set out tea in front of the little shrines, and Fjord sighed.

  


"So I'm supposed to... what, pray?"

  


"You're supposed to drink your tea.  Anything else is up to you.''

  


So Fjord drank his tea, and pointedly didn't look at the shrines.

  


He did notice that raven-Caleb had dropped his stolen scone in front of the Wildmother's spot.

  


Caduceus, of course, noticed Fjord noticing, but chose not to bring it up.                                                                                             

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairings: While Widomauk will still be the primary pairing, I’m going to be touching on the relationships between Fjord and Jester, Fjord and Caduceus, Beau and Yasha, and Beau and Jester. The currently planned pairings for this story are an asexual romance between Fjord and Caduceus, and a slow burn friends-to-lovers between Beau and Jester. This fic is VERY much a WIP, without a thoroughly planned throughline, so be warned. I’m not currently tagging for these specific pairings as I know how annoying it can be to look for a rarer pairing and find out it’s only in the background.


End file.
